Children's Playground, Takino Hillside Park

View of the Rainbow nest in the playfield.

Project Details

• Project Name: Children's Playground, Takino Hillside Park
• Client: Hokkaido Development Agency
• Project Type: Playground and Landscape Design
• Location of site: Sapporo-shi, Hokkaido, Japan
• Principal Designer: Fumiaki Takano
• Design Team: Norihiro Kanekiyo, Kiyoshi Odashima, Etsuji Ueda, Saido Higuchi, Harukazu Saitou, Maki Onuki, Hiroyasu Araki
• Contractors: Uemura Kensetsu, Sakamono Kensetsu,Yokoyama Zouen
• Site Area: 400ha
• Total Floor Area: 1.8ha
• Cost of Construction: 1.5 billion yen
• Date of commencement of project: August 1998
• Date of completion of project: March 2000

Varied lighting and sound conditions create a rich sensory experience for the children.

The Project

The project sought to create a place where children could play freely in the natural environment. The idea of Nature Playground was thus fundamental to the design brief. Keeping in mind the limited experience of children in contemporary society when faced with wild environs, the design attempts to adjust them to play in the forest gradually along a five stage program. The Nature Playground was planned as the first stage. The space was designed to release children from the mundane urban jungle into the natural habitat, calling for an awakening of their senses before entering the forest.

Images of the Model (left) and the Hives (right) built in 1:30 scale.

Another stage of the playground coined the 'nests of Living things' was inspired by images of built shelters found in nature These were developed to create an adventurous and innovative arena, playing with the children's sense of scale. Most of the facilities are enveloped in green cover and soil to unify with the surroundings.

View of the playground set within the hillside park in Japan.

Net play tool in the rainbow nest dome is made in with collaboration with fabric artist Toshiko Macadam. Organic forms of ant hives were measured by computers from the model and drawn by using the data measured. These were then constructed using the truss wall construction method.

Credits

• Text: Courtesy of the architect
• Photographs: Courtesy of the architect
• Compiled and edited by Manish Mehta